


An End and a Beginning

by alba17



Series: Marvel Shipping Games Ficlets [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 21:05:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2362175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alba17/pseuds/alba17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maria wants to believe Nick's reassurances, but imagines another life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An End and a Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> For marvelshippinggames Bonus Round 2, prompt, regret.

“I’m going to have to disappear for awhile and when I say disappear, I really mean it. Incommunicado. I have to do things that I can’t tell you about. Got it?” Fury leans across the small coffee shop table and cups Maria’s face with his large hand, warm and reassuring. 

Maria wants to believe that everything’s going to be all right. She fights back a lump in her throat and nods. She keeps having to remind herself that there’s no more SHIELD. For a moment she grips his wrist, hangs on tightly before letting go. “Yeah, got it. Can’t say that I like it.”

They’re in a Starbucks in a suburban mall, hopefully far from spying eyes, although the likelihood of that is slim. Fury can never disguise his one bad eye unless he’s wearing sunglasses and he’s not a man that blends in well. He’s trying though. Today he’s in professor garb, wearing a casual corduroy sports jacket and button-down blue cotton shirt open at the neck, khakis and a shoulder bag.

Maria imagines an alternative life where they settle down in a university town, maybe Chapel Hill or Madison, she works for some security company, Fury teaches poli sci. They buy a cute little bungalow and she plants tomatoes in the spring, attends teas for faculty spouses.

Yeah, nice fantasy.

“You’re all set up with an interview with Stark. You like New York, right?”

“Do I have a choice?” She snorts. “It’s not my favorite place after the Chitauri, I gotta admit.”

“Listen, it’ll be fine.” Fury pins her with one determined eye. “It won’t be forever. I got plans. I just gotta lay low for awhile. Anyway, you like museums, New York’s good for that.”

Maria starts to speak and Fury interrupts her, grabbing both her hands and holding them tight across the table. “SHIELD will be back,” he whispers. “I’m not giving up and neither are you.”

She can’t help sighing. Maybe they should give up. Her vision of a life in Chapel Hill taunts her. “Is it worth it? Hydra infiltrated us from the very beginning. How can we ever be sure we’re free of them?” 

“We can’t. But this is what we do, this is what our lives are for.”

Resistance swells up inside her. She sips her coffee, trying to quell the doubts. SHIELD was her life for a long time. She was utterly committed and had no room for anything else, no partners, no family, other than whatever this thing was with Fury. Finding out she was essentially working for HYDRA all along had rocked her world and shook her to the core. It was hard to come back from that.

She searches Fury’s face, the determined line of his mouth, the faith burning in his one eye. He’s her rock, her lodestone, the one thing on which she can always rely. She wants to believe. “You’re right. It’s what we do. SHIELD will be back.”

He seems reassured, tension leaking from his body. He sits back and takes a drink. “They got those pumpkin spice lattes again. I like those.”

Maria smiles. “Me too.” 

Outside, he presses her close and his kiss is touched with cinnamon. She buries her face in his neck for a moment, relishing his familiar scent, trying to memorize the feel of his arms around her. 

“Maria,” he says softly, his mouth in her hair, tightening their embrace.

She takes a long, shaky breath. “Take care of yourself, Nick. I’ll be here when you get back.”

“Take care of Stark and Pepper. I know you can take care of yourself.”

“Will do. Don’t be long.”

“I’ll try.”


End file.
